Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. - Thorstein Veblen

In the rare cases where it occurs, a failure to increase one's visible consumption when the means for an increase are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for explanation, and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed.

In the modern industrial communities... the apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous... that the consumers of these things cannot make way with them in the required manner without help.

The chief use of servants is the evidence they afford of the master's ability to pay.